Lucha de Clasesand the International Marxist Tendency strongly condemn the criminal terrorist attack carried out by ISIS activists in Barcelona. An attack which, up to now, has left thirteen dead and over a hundred injured.

The events in Charlottesville graphically show us the danger the far right represents and should serve as a warning to all organizations of the working class and on the left in Canada and the United States. The far right is gathering strength and has come out into the open, but its strength must not be exaggerated. The task now is to understand what has happened and what it means, to study the rise of the far right, and get organized to fight against it.

Livestreamed footage of violent street battles between “white nationalist” and neo-Nazi marchers and a sea of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia flooded global news outlets and social media on August 12.

Even before the National Election Council had announced the results of Sunday’s Constituent Assembly elections in Venezuela, the opposition and western imperialism had already declared there had been massive fraud and that they would not recognise the legitimacy of the Assembly. Since then, they have piled up pressure on all fronts. What is to be done?

On a bright, sunny evening on May 22nd thousands, mainly young teenagers, gathered at a pop concert in the Manchester Arena. But what was intended as a joyous occasion was turned into a bloodbath when a lone suicide bomber detonated an improvised explosive device packed with shrapnel in a crowded foyer where parents were waiting for their children.

Following the shock of Brexit, Britain has suffered another political earthquake. Theresa May is facing oblivion. A snap election has turned into a Tory disaster. The expected Tory landslide, which was supposed to usher in decades of Conservative rule, turned out to be a myth. Instead, we have seen the government’s majority wiped out by a resurgent Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

On Tuesday, an anonymous source leaked the Labour Party’s draft manifesto for the upcoming general election - without doubt the boldest and most left-wing manifesto that Labour has stood on in decades.

The most chaotic presidential election of the Fifth Republic has just resulted in the election of a new head of state. At the end of the first round, the winner of the second was already known. Millions of left-wing voters reluctantly voted for Macron to defeat Marine Le Pen.

Alan Woods, editor of In Defence of Marxism, discusses the recent results of the first round of the French presidential elections. Above all, these results represented a shattering of the status quo, with a complete collapse of the traditional parties of the centre left and the centre right.

The results of the first round of the presidential election open a new phase of the political crisis in France. As in April 2002, the second round will be between the right and the far right. But much has changed since then. The economic crisis of 2008 has taken place. The probable victory of Emmanuel Macron, in two weeks time, will not lead to the relative political stability that Chirac benefited from in the wake of his victory in May 2002.